Bloodstream

by Luca Veste

  Murphy left the office, Kirkham scurrying behind him.

  ‘Where are we going, sir?’

  ‘To speak to someone who knew about Hannah and her secret.’

  * * *

  Rossi watched Murphy walk off and waited for DCI Stephens to do the same. She turned back to her desk after risking another look to see if Murphy was going to come back and tell her what the hell he was doing. She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t. With Murphy, she would just wait him out.

  ‘You all right?’ DC Harris said, not looking over at her. Still squinting at his computer screen.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Just seemed like you got blown off there.’

  ‘If that sort of thing bothered me, I would have quit the job years ago. I’m quite used to you men sticking together.’

  DC Harris pursed his lips, looking towards Rossi. ‘Whatever, Laura. For what it’s worth, I agree with you. There’s something darker going on with this one.’

  ‘Good to know,’ Rossi said, pulling her phone out of her bag. ‘If you have any more thoughts on things, don’t be afraid to voice them. You know . . . when it’s not just me sitting here. Now, I’m going to the “little girls’ room”. See if I can find your bollocks in there, shall I?’

  Rossi walked off before DC Harris could reply. Instead of going into the Ladies, she walked past them, carrying on down the corridor and heading to a different floor altogether. Satisfied she had complete privacy, she looked through her phone and, finding the number she wanted, pressed it and dialled.

  When the answer service kicked in, she considered hanging up and sending a text instead, but decided against it. She had to do things differently to the way she would normally.

  ‘Hi, it’s Laura. Just got your text. Hope work isn’t too manic. I know mine is. Anyway, I had a great time the other night, so yeah, let me know when you’re free again soon, I’d be up for that . . .’

  Up for that . . . Christ, Laura.

  ‘So . . . yeah, just give me a call. Or a text. Whatever. Speak to you soon.’

  She ended the call and rested the back of her head against the wall.

  ‘Liscio, Laura Rossi. Very smooth.’

  Normality

  He was starting to lose his grip on reality. He could feel it. The ridiculous name he had come up with for his other self – The Man in Black. As if he could divorce himself from what he had been doing. What he was doing. It needled at him. He liked to believe his life looked normal. Ordinary. Not that it was anything like ordinary, but appearances had to be deceiving. He hadn’t really missed much work but his absence had been noted. He could tell from the extended looks from certain people, the barbed comments as he walked down the corridors.

  He wished he could tell them. Shout it into every room, every office. Proudly announce that he was the man everyone was afraid of. His heart hammered against his chest as he imagined the looks on their faces. The disbelief and shock it would create. That he was someone, something, they could never imagine.

  That he wasn’t what they thought he was.

  The man he was at work was someone else. Another character he had to assume. He saw everything as a stage, an act. He was beginning to accept that there was no real person behind the mask he wore. It had disappeared. Now there were only roles he played.

  Always too awkward, too weird to be friends with. He’d always felt like an outsider, the person no one wanted to be around. That was all he had heard throughout his life. He had worked on an act, so that he would fit in better. Honed it over the years, until now, when no one would be able to tell he had ever been that type of man.

  He’d gone through university, moved away from the city and explored a different place. Then he’d worked his way round the country before returning almost ten years later.

  Not that much had changed in Liverpool in that time. Those without still had nothing, those with everything still ruled. The waterfront was a changed place now, more buildings springing up across the city almost constantly, but the people were much the same. A few more foreigners, but that was the same everywhere in England.

  He had changed. Over that time, moving about, never really having anywhere to call home, he had become different. He lamented not doing things he should have done when he was younger. Regretted not standing up for himself – publicly – and shaming those who had tried to keep him down. The girls who had strung him along, the lads who had bullied him; they were to blame.

  He had wanted love, but it was never going to be the right kind. Not the real love that he could show someone.

  There was a girl. One without a number. It was her fault. She was also to blame. Now he was stuck, using her as a veneer of normality.

  He spoke to Number Four. Told the story again and again so he could make her understand that this other woman meant nothing to him. That it was her – Number Four – who was his real love.

  ‘She loves me, I can see that, but I know it’s a lie. She could never love me. I don’t know if anyone ever could. Not the way you will.’

  He felt the anger rise as he thought of those people he had visited in the previous weeks. The ones he had placed in the chairs. How they had lied and kept things hidden away. Pretended to love, whilst doing everything to protect themselves above all else.

  ‘They will never realise what they have. They will never know love. I see that, at the end. When I give them every opportunity to show it. It’s never enough.’

  He blinked away the emotion, sending it back into memory. Shivered as it became colder in the room.

  ‘They’ll say things about me, I know they will. That I probably tortured animals as a child. Maybe they’ll drag up someone I’ve never met to talk about me putting bees in a jar and watching them suffocate. I couldn’t do that. I remember wanting to be God. As a teenager, probably even younger than that, I wanted the ability to decide everything. I wanted to control fate, people’s actions and decisions. To control everything around me. What am I?’

  He waited for an answer that was never going to come. Pulled his coat around him tighter, blowing into his hands to warm them up.

  ‘It’s cold in here, I know. It’s supposed to be spring and most people probably still have their heating on. I should do something about that.’

  He watched Number Four shiver and pull herself tighter into a ball – the clank of the chains on her wrists and ankles echoing round the room as she moved.

  The Man in Black. Something he had heard his dad call an old singer he couldn’t recall. He was another character. Someone to hide behind.

  ‘I’ve played the games and lost every time. Read advice, but still got nowhere. And then I’m forced to watch these people, hear their stories and do nothing. Why should I?’

  There was no win to be had for him. He knew he wasn’t the only one. That there were millions of men out there who suffered just as he had.

  ‘I don’t think I have a future, Number Four. You’re my last hope. If I can’t make you see, then I don’t know what I will do.’

  He wanted to accept normality. To be like everyone else. Have a family, work hard and provide. Settle down and embrace life instead of death.

  ‘There will be a choice. I can feel it. What if they finally discover me, what will I do? What will I do with you? What if they never find out who I really am, then what do I do? Will you ever be ready? Will you ever love me the right way? What if I don’t show you enough?’

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. He reached for it, still staring at the wall above Number Four’s head. The yellowed wallpaper, peeling away. Layers of the past lying underneath. He looked down at his phone, focusing his eyes on reality once more.

  He thumbed his phone, then smiled.

  Adam

  If he had thought things through a little more – given an equal weight to what would happen if he went through with it – he might not have sent the email. He would have decided against it, thinking of a better way to do what needed to be done. Chosen a
different path to destroy what looked, on the surface at least, to be indestructible.

  Adam knew that if the truth was put in front of her, so she couldn’t deny it, hide from it, things would have to be different.

  He had met Carly three years earlier, although it seemed like much less than that. They were both starting a job at the same place, a month-long training session being their introduction to the company. The training was a pointless exercise, but a necessary evil if you wanted to work for the company. It was a requirement, no matter how much he’d argued the point with the two pseudo-teachers delivering the training course.

  He had become aware of Carly early on. There were around twenty people on the course, but his gregarious personality and ability to talk to anyone meant he had became friendly with many within in the group quickly. Carly was quiet at first, watching everyone during breaks in the canteen, sitting on the outside, taking it all in.

  She was attractive, there was no doubt about that. Not someone you’d notice in a crowd, but in an environment such as the one they’d found themselves in, it was more obvious. He’d guessed most of the other women there to be in their mid-forties, with some even older. He was just into his twenties and he imagined Carly was of a similar age.

  They’d shared a few conversations as the week went on and she came out of her shell a little more. Soon, this had progressed to emailing each other during the classes, peering over computer screens at each other, smiling at a shared joke.

  It could have been a perfect romance. A tale to tell grandchildren one day.

  The emails had given them a chance to open up, without the worry of being judged face to face. They’d talked about hidden feelings, the past, their hopes for the future. All laid out in black and white.

  It should have been a perfect romance.

  The problem was her boyfriend of eight years.

  Over those first few weeks, and the months following, they’d grown closer. They would meet up, just for a few minutes sometimes. They’d walk to the coffee machine together, just to get away from the desks they were forced to sit at for eight hours a day. Away from the endless telephone calls. Carly had rarely mentioned her partner, preferring instead to laugh at Adam’s jokes, to be complimented, made to feel special. It was something he always did well.

  The emails had continued. Became text messaging. An almost constant line of conversation throughout the days, only going silent for the few hours Carly’s boyfriend took her attention.

  She had been with him since the age of fifteen. Didn’t know any different. They had drifted through their teenage years, moving in together once they were both working. The boyfriend had been worried when she’d lost her last job, but was happy she had walked into a new one quickly.

  Adam wondered if he would have been as happy if he’d known Carly was also walking into his life.

  Months had passed, Adam had been convinced that Carly was beginning to share the same feelings he had. His focus on anything else had gone now. His personality was eroding, he was becoming slowly obsessed with Carly. With her life, her dreams. With what he could provide for her, if only she would realise.

  The first rejection had been in month four. A works night out, which had ended with him walking her to the taxi rank in town. He had a fantasy that too much alcohol would loosen her tongue and she’d reveal her true feelings for him. They’d ride off into the sunset and a future for the two of them would begin.

  She’d rejected that opportunity.

  It had continued for months in the same vein. They did everything together during work hours – spent time with each other outside work sometimes – but nothing happened physically. The emails and texts became more sexual, more explicit, but still unrealised. Then, a year after they had first met, another works night out had ended with a kiss in an alleyway in town. A few months of similar contact followed, kisses exchanged, gropes in secret. Then, it all came to an end, Carly deciding that, given the ultimatum, she would choose what she was comfortable with. What she had known all her life.

  Adam couldn’t let go. He’d followed her, to see what her life was like. Then he’d followed the boyfriend, to see what he had that Adam didn’t. That’s how he’d discovered the things he did behind Carly’s back.

  His name was Will. Worked for a solicitor’s firm, but Adam was unsure what he did. Had never asked Carly for more information. Following Carly’s boyfriend was a thrill for Adam, watching him as he went about his normal life, not knowing the man who had turned his girlfriend’s head was shadowing him.

  What he’d discovered hadn’t really shocked him. He’d expected to find out that Will was unfaithful to Carly.

  Carly and Will had been thrust into adulthood with no outside experience, desperate to discover if there was something better out there for them.

  All they had known was each other. No one can survive that.

  Adam had never told Carly what he’d found out. Months later, he was still talking to her every day, as if nothing had happened between them. The flirtations and explicit conversations continued, but Carly kept him at arm’s length. Reading the words on a screen was enough for her.

  He could sense himself changing. Becoming a different person. He began snapping at people in work if they did something he deemed to be wrong. He would walk through crowds, deliberately pushing his shoulder into people. He knew she had changed him, but couldn’t let go of her.

  Adam blamed Carly. He couldn’t tell her what her boyfriend was doing to her; he needed Carly to want to be with him without that.

  He hadn’t meant to read the article, sitting there in the canteen waiting to see if Carly would appear. He was just scrolling through the news app on his phone, seeing if there was anything of interest. It was only because Liverpool was mentioned in the headline that he clicked on the link.

  Another couple of murders. Some video or something. It wasn’t until he read the words further down the page that he began to take notice, found himself taking note of the email address provided by the apparent serial killer. A fleeting thought flashed across his mind. He dismissed it, turning his phone off as Carly approached his table with a smile.

  He listened for an hour as she complained about her boyfriend and how bad her life was with him. Adam told her, once again, to leave him. To come with him. To change her life. But her eyes told him all he needed to know.

  It was never going to happen.

  That’s all it took. The straw that broke him. On the way back to the office, where hundreds of other workers sat staring at computer screens every day, Adam made a decision.

  His voice had shaken as he’d spoken to her earlier. He’d pleaded with her, was more accusatory than he’d ever been. Why not him? Why did she carry on with someone she didn’t love? Why, why, why?

  She had simply shaken her head, given him a look, and walked away. Sent him an email when she’d got back to her desk.

  He wouldn’t open it. Refused to.

  Instead, Adam opened a new message. Took his phone out and checked the email address again.

  He typed out a message, hovering the cursor over the send button for a second or two before clicking.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The rain had stopped. That was one for the plus column, Murphy thought, driving to yet another grieving relative. Another house where death would be the main conversational piece for months, years to come. At least he could drive there without the windscreen wipers on.

  You look for the little victories.

  DC Kirkham was playing the dutiful passenger. Eyes locked ahead, hands clasped together in his lap. Murphy was waiting for some spark, some semblance of personality to appear, but nothing had turned up yet. Every now and again, Kirkham would take out his mobile phone, look at it for a few seconds, then return it to his pocket.

  ‘Why do you keep looking at that?’ Murphy said, after the fifth or sixth time. ‘If you’re worried, I don’t mind you taking it out, you know?’

  ‘I get car sic
k if I look at it for too long.’

  ‘Ah,’ Murphy replied, checking the satnav on his dashboard to make sure he was going the right way. ‘You don’t mind the music, do you?’

  ‘No, not at all. Quite good actually.’

  Murphy accepted the lie and continued driving, lowering the volume a little as the song changed. ‘Pink Floyd isn’t to everyone’s taste, but it’s the first time in a while I haven’t had Laura in the car with me. Making the most of it.’

  ‘My dad likes them,’ Kirkham replied. ‘Not that I’m saying you’re old or anything.’

  Murphy turned, raised his eyebrows at DC Kirkham. ‘I didn’t think you were. I do now, of course.’

  ‘Erm . . . no, not at all. You’re only a few years older than me.’

  ‘You could probably add a couple more on to that few.’

  Murphy thought he’d grow to like DC Kirkham over time. He knew when to be quiet and not make things worse. They drove on in silence, save for Roger Waters’s pained vocals and Gilmour’s wailing guitars, entering the town of Stoneycroft where Hannah Flynn’s sister lived. Murphy parked the car before taking note of the address once more.

  ‘Always check the address before ringing the doorbell,’ he said, switching off the engine and unbuckling his seat belt. ‘I once sat in the wrong house for half an hour before realising. Saves awkward conversations.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of that,’ DC Kirkham replied, pulling out his notebook. Murphy waited for him to finish writing, unable to keep a bemused smirk off his face.

  They didn’t need to wait long after knocking, the door was almost swung off its hinges by the family liaison officer posted at the house. Murphy introduced himself and Kirkham to a blank stare, producing his ID when there was no movement from the officer.